African firms have shown incredible promise within the last decade, attracting very commendable investor funds and birthing nine (9) Unicorns. Economies in Africa are joining the fastest-growing economies in the world, when you combine this with her population, it makes for a perfect clime for entrepreneurs and investors alike.
With African startups raising over $1 billion in the first half of 2021 alone, the number of multi-million dollar companies in and originating from Africa has been on a steady upward spiral.
We have carefully researched African startups and the potentials they hold in the nearest future for growing into a multi-billion dollar firm. Factors considered in this research included:
- History
- Management Structure
- Market Size
- Industry Potential
- Innovation and Technology
- Business Development Prospects
So, if you are a Venture Capitalist looking for new opportunities to invest, a business enthusiast, or just having fun on the internet, here are our top picks for you.
Jobgam– Nigeria.
Top of our list is Jobgam. Registered by law as Jobgam Technologies Liimited, it is one of Africa’s largest online job platform, committed to eliminating the bridge that emanates between job seekers and employees by combining high-end technology with deep-rooted and vast experience. Daily, this Pan-African project connects millions of people to life-changing exciting opportunities.
Their portal is famous with employers, job seekers, and those seeking career advancement and by millions of subscribers as fast, highly innovative, efficient, stable and trustworthy; the strength of the rapidly expanding enterprise can be traced to her prompt response to industry trends, sleek and user-friendly outlook/web-pages and the apt in providing prompt, up-to-date information on new and existing vacancies all over the African Continent.
Her recently upgraded database now provides even more personalized and improved content, performance, features and services making available to millions of subscribers and visitors access to an even broader coverage and database of job listings and employers, and for employers to access more job seekers.
They claim their database is upgraded with over 5,000 new jobs daily as they provide there well over 120 million subscribers and visitors connection to real jobs and required data. On their website, you can seek-out openings, create an account and personalize profile for prospective employer’s attention, create or upgrade your resume, post jobs for free and recruit, manage even the minutest aspects of everyday employee affair ranging from log book, remunerations, leaves, holidays, etc.
It envisions a seamless job process while creating lifelong relationships that ensure meaningful employment and hiring opportunities in the most stress-free manner for the firm and individual.
The highly innovative firm is already making inroads to Kenya, South Africa and India.
Thndr - Egypt
The Egyptian fintech Thndr, started with the dream of making investing easy and accessible for everyone.
The platform charges no commission on its users’ earnings, and does not have a minimum investment amount like many other investment platforms.
Thndr allows users invest in public companies, as well as various mutual funds. It also gives its users access to a wide variety of market data, news, and other educational materials, which does an amazing job at simplifying a process that many people deem as very daunting and foreign.
Thndr is GenZ way into the financial world, from the ease of registration, to the beautifully built interface, Thndr exceeds expectations at every step.
They operate with industry-leading multi-factor authentication that makes sure that all of your data and transactions are fully secured and have a support team is available to help with any questions or issues you may face, in the fastest time possible. The firm keeps breaking new frontiers in innovation and service delivery.
Immobazyme - South Africa
Immobazyme was established in December 2019 with a mission to engineer and develop immobilized enzymes and analytical platforms, which enable the production of high-value products. Through realizing this mission, Immobazyme hopes to catalyze the African biotechnology industry by developing innovative skills and utilizing local biological resources.
Her pioneering products are geared to change the biotechnology industry..
Headquartered in Stellenbosch, South Africa, Immobazyme is a spin-out company of the University of Stellenbosch and a member of the University of Stellenbosch Enterprises Group (Innovus).
Through the use of the proprietary novel enzyme immobilization platform of which the founders are inventors, called PepTrap™️, Immobazyme is developing systems and products that can be utilized to solve prevalent issues in a number of industries.
“The PepTrap™️ technology, licensed out by USE to Immobazyme, is a unique platform for enzyme immobilization that is greatly more affordable than existing technologies. “ — Ethan Hunter, COO and Co-Founder of Immobazyme.
Beyond the cost advantage, PepTrap™️ uses simple and naturally abundant materials in its synthesis, which in combination allow this technology to be utilized at industrial scales.
Immobazyme is pursuing three major aspects in our current business model:
Industry research collaborations – Engineer and develop immobilized enzyme platforms and technologies for a range of potential industry partners
Sale of PepTrap™️ immobilized enzyme systems – Sale of unpacked PepTrap™️ columns for laboratories in which researchers can immobilize their own enzymes for analytical purposes
Novel product development pipeline – Develop novel immobilized enzyme products using. Immobazyme’s novel industrial enzyme product development pipeline
AURA - South Africa
Aura is a software development company that creates custom apps for large corporates and security companies. Our latest smart emergency response app provides these businesses with instant access to top-tier, private armed and medical responders anytime, anywhere using a connected device.
AURA was born out of the critical need to make private emergency and security response services more accessible and affordable in South Africa. The founding team is comprised of young, entrepreneurial experts within the security and technology industries.
Together, they have created the first truly actionable response app that connects businesses and their customers to an expansive network of over 2500 security and medical responders.
We integrate our smart and scalable platform into your existing customer portals whether via API integration, WhatsApp, customized apps, or various IoT devices. This allows you to offer your staff and customers instant emergency assistance as a free or paid for value-added service.
AURA equips corporates with the tools they need to protect their employees and customers while expanding their offerings. Security services benefit from access to the customer base of these large corporates and the opportunity to create additional revenue streams.
To make instant and reliable security and medical assistance more accessible and affordable by creating and deploying smart, scalable, and disruptive technology and create a world where everyone is safe by developing smart tech security solutions.
WootLab- Nigeria
Go from great ideas to great products with remote engineering teams from around the world! Wootland offers a solution that helps both unemployed workers as well as companies in one brilliant platform.
Wootlab are a team of competent developers from around the world that give life to great ideas and help leading companies build the world’s best engineering teams
Wootlab enables companies to outsource their engineering and development teams by connecting them with a pool of freelancers and unemployed workers, predominantly in Africa. They also offer skills development services, as well as bundle packages to help out SMEs, making WootLab the perfect solution for the development of tech companies in developing countries.
The enterprise stands today as one of Africa’s most promising.
Eden Life- Nigeria
Eden is a redesign of the service industry, an attempt at building an efficient world where customers get food, laundry, and home cleaning done, with no friction, by our highly trained service providers.
This startup automates your household chores with an app-based solution.
The Eden Life platform lets you easily find someone to do your cooking, cleaning, laundry, grocery shopping, and gardening, with top quality being one of their key values.
Little - Kenya
Little is a pan-African “everyday everything” app and one of the African largest ride-hailing service companies, serving cities across Kenya, Uganda, Tanzania, Ethiopia, Somalia, Senegal and India. The Little app offers mobility, delivery and payment solutions by connecting customers to drivers and delivery agents, enabling convenience and transparency for hundreds of thousands of customers.
With over 20,000 corporate clients daily, Little is one of the most used ride apps in the world. Plans to expand operations to Ethiopia are already underway as the firm continues to expand.
Ear1- Nigeria
Ear1 bridges the gap between influencers and other people in their industries., allowing you to connect with your favorite influencers, helping you stand out from the flood of DMs they receive daily, and hopefully form a meaningful professional relationship with them.
Ear1 could be an up and coming musician’s ticket to that record deal they always dreamed of, or it could become another stream of income for well-known lawyers who people keep reaching out to asking for advice.
Piggyvest - Nigeria
PiggyVest is everythng financial management at your fingertip. Helping you managing your finance across a variety of areas as saving, spending, investing, etc., the Nigerian startup is a complete financial suite.
Since launching in 2016, over 3,000,000 people have used PiggyVest to manage their money better, avoid over-spending and be more accountable.
PiggyVest is the first online “Savings & Investment” app in West Africa. We first launched as “Piggybank.ng” on the 7th of January 2016 as a savings-only platform.
PiggyVest is on a mission ‘to give everyone the power to better manage & grow their finances’, and we intend to be the best at this.
With 3 Million + customers and increasing appeal, PiggyVest is just set to take the world stage.
Momint – South Africa
From launching Africa’s first NFT Marketplace to hosting the largest NFT auctions on the continent, the Web3 world is constantly evolving, and so are they.
Momint is Striving To Be The Biggest Decentralized App In The World By Driving Adoption And Education Of Web3, Enabling An Accessible Future For All.
From building a Community, educating the world About Web3, building a Safe social network for trading Digital, empowering creators to start projects with Momint Launchpad®, Momint is driving utility and return on investment through verified projects pioneering partnerships that demonstrate how blockchain technology can be harnessed to support important endeavors and drive real world change and an ecosystem for alternative investment.
Strove – South Africa
Strove was founded by Chris Bruchhausen who is driven by the mission of creating a healthier and happier world. “Being a strong believer in the importance of physical and mental wellbeing, I decided to build a company that empowers employers and employees to lead healthier, happier and more balanced lives.” He says.
The startup offers a solution to improve employee wellbeing through incentives to exercise.
Once a company signs up, employees can sync their Strava, Apple Health, & Google Health with the Strove app, and then they receive various vouchers and rewards for reaching their exercise goals.
“Strove’s initial focus was on physical well-being, and now we’re also incorporating a mental well-being component which will add features such as in-app meditations and wellbeing surveys, covering mental well-being indicators such as stress, sleep, work, etc. We’re also starting to work with neuroscientists to build courses for cognitive behavioral techniques.
Strove’s primary focus is to help employees with stress & burnout through regular exercise and mental health.
“Integrations with Garmin and Fitbit that are currently in the pipeline will definitely help grow their client base. Strove also offer a white-labelled version for big corporates, and are currently in the final stages of being implemented at some of South Africa’s biggest corporates. The next step for Strove is to break into the UK market.” This startup continues to grow and expand daily.
Summary
Unicorn companies are those that reach a valuation of $1 billion without being listed on the stock market and are the dream of any tech startup, which means it is privately held.
Africa is seeing a rush of funding for its commercial sector, and some companies have already emerged as the continent’s biggest firms, becoming unicorns in Africa.
Notably, most of Africa’s unicorns are tech related, with most in the fintech industry. Investors interest are been capture more and more by African firms. These firms listed above possess unbelievable potentials.